Mastery & Salvation
by Magi Silverwolf
Summary: Dumbledore said one thing while doing another. Harry decided that he was done listening. (HC fill; ToS fill)


**Disclaimer:** I do not own the original canon nor am I making any profit from writing this piece. All works are accredited to their original authors, performers, and producers while this piece is mine. No copyright infringement is intended. I acknowledge that all views and opinions expressed herein are merely my interpretations of the characters and situations found within the original canon and may not reflect the views and opinions of the original author(s), producer(s), and/or other people.

 **Warnings:** This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers. Please utilize understanding of personal sensitivities before and while reading.

 **Author's Note:** I noticed in re-reading _King's Cross_ in DH, that the child in the train station is never identified. Dumbledore just keeps talking about how it can't be helped. So, here's how that scene could have gone if Harry had chosen compassion over belief in Dumbledore's words.

 **Competition/Challenge Block:**  
 **House:** Hufflepuff  
 **Category:** Short (500 - 2000 Words)  
 **Prompt:** "I've been here before." / "Stop lying." (Speech)  
 **Representation:** Teacher; Government Service  
 **Bonus Challenge(s):** Second Verse (Mouth of Babes)  
 **Word Count:** 1488 (Story Only); n/a (Story & Epigraph)

-= LP =-  
Mastery & Salvation  
-= LP =-

Harry watched as Voldemort raised his wand. He kept his eyes locked with Voldemort's, refusing to show even a hint of the fear that had his heart pounding. The memory of Luna's gentle warmth against his side as they buried Dobby joined the brief memory of Ginny's kiss. He could almost hear Luna's calm declaration about lost things always turning up.

As the green of Voldemort's curse sped towards him, Harry wondered if corpses counted as lost things.

Then the darkness replaced the bright green light, and everything was gone.

-= LP =-

It took an embarrassingly long time for Harry to become cognizant that there was a world around him again. Or rather, it would have been embarrassing had he been able to react to the situation emotionally. He turned the thought over in his mind, examining it in ways that he rarely had the time and energy to do normally. What was embarrassing about it _exactly_? By all rights, he should be dead. There was a very valid reason for it to be called the _Killing Curse_ , after all. So perhaps the shock of finding himself in some vague landscape of uniformed white blankness wasn't something to be even a little bit ashamed of, given the fact that he was _anywhere at all_.

He was mildly disappointed to be alone.

Harry had been harboring a secret hope that dying would mean finally being with his family, the real one that loved him, since his brief conversation with Luna after Sirius' death. That hope had been reinforced just minutes before his meeting with Voldemort, when he had used the Stone to summon them. They had promised to stay close to him. They had _promised_.

The pain of that betrayal cut through the numb apathy consuming him.

He screamed into the void, giving voice to what felt like a lifetime of false promises.

A pitiful whimper answered him, followed by weak thumps like something trying to move.

Harry stood, hardly aware of moving to do so. The movement brought his attention to the fact that other than the glasses perched on his nose like always, he was completely naked. He had the vague thought that clothes would be nice, something that fit for once. As if conjured by the thought, a small stack of clothes appeared nearby. With only a sliver of caution, Harry put on the simple purple shirt and jeans. It felt strange wearing something clean that actually fit. He wanted to marvel about that, but the sound of the _something_ echoed through the slowly solidifying room again.

Curiosity drove him towards a bench which had not been there a moment ago.

The sight of the creature lurking beneath it made Harry recoil in horror. It was a small child, no bigger than a toddler, tightly curled on the ground as if to protect its chest and stomach from blows. Its skin was raw and flayed-looking. Harry didn't have imagine how that would hurt. More than once he had earned similar marks from his uncle's belt for some misdeed or another. Just as this naked and abandoned child did now, Harry had struggled to breathe through the ache of both the wounds and the knowledge of being so utterly unwanted that there was no reason to hope for salvation.

He wanted, more than anything else at that moment, to give the child what he himself had always lacked: the compassion of another person capable of understanding. He moved closer, careful to telegraph every inch as obviously as possible. He hunkered down to crawl the last few feet.

"You cannot help."

Harry jerked his head towards the voice. Albus Dumbledore was walking towards him, sprightly and upright. His dark blue robes stood in sharp relief against the paleness of the world. A flash of red-hot anger swept through Harry followed just as quickly by an urge to snarl defensively. He didn't quite understand the _why_ (everything seemed both too far away and too close) but Harry wanted the man as far from the tortured child as possible.

"Harry," Dumbledore greeted. He spread his (whole and undamaged) arms wide as if offering a hug or embrace. Harry didn't move from his crouch, unwilling to abandon the child as he had been abandoned. Dumbledore's eyes were the same piercing blue that they had always been and when Harry didn't return the greeting in any way, they gained the same flintiness they had had when he had faced down Lucius Malfoy. Dumbledore continued with a tone somewhere between stern and disappointed. "Let us walk, dear boy."

"I think I would rather stay, thanks," Harry countered. Dumbledore frowned before he shifted his expression into something resembling regretful sorrow. Once more a feeling he didn't understand echoed through Harry. The headmaster was _lying_. Dumbledore took a step closer and this time the snarl wasn't just an urge. "Stay _back_."

"Harry, there's no helping that thing. It's simply not possible."

"Have you even tried? Do you ever try to truly help _anyone_?"

"Harry, my dear boy," Dumbledore started, only for Harry to cut him off by shooting to his feet.

"You always _talk_ about helping others and the need to be _compassionate_ , but you always turn your back on those who need you the most! You collect powerful positions like they were Chocolate Frog cards, but did you ever think of using them to actually help anyone beyond yourself?"

"Harry, you're angry and not thinking clearly," Dumbledore said, his tone soft in an attempt at placating the ire Harry was showing. "I understand. I do. I've been here before."

" _Stop lying_ ," Harry snapped. "You could have made sure that Sirius received a trial, just like you made sure that Snape _didn't_. Or when he escaped, you could have pushed for his case to be heard before the ICW, which you were head of. You could have reigned in Malfoy's bullying or Snape's or god, even Sirius and Dad's. You could have _checked on me_ , instead of making a bunch excuses about wanting to keep me alive when you didn't, did you? You just wanted me to die when it was most convenient!"

"Harry, you know that's not true."

"Do I? Maybe Snape showed me more of his memories than you wanted."

Resolved to ignore the old man with his excuses and justifications, Harry dropped back into his crouch. The child had stilled during the argument and was now watching Harry with dark green eyes full of hesitant hope, as if he had been denied even the least bit of basic compassion so many times that even when it was seemingly happening, he couldn't trust it. Harry knew, in the same place that had always warned him when his aunt and uncle were angry, that the boy was not beyond help.

It would not be _easy_ , but _someone_ had to open their heart.

Compassion in the face of suffering would always be _right_.

Harry extended both hands to the shivering and maimed child. It took what felt like an eternity before the boy began to uncurl. It took even longer for him to reach for Harry's hands. With patience he didn't know he possessed, Harry drew the toddler to him, cradling him as gently as possible as he stood once more. Harry spared Dumbledore only a glance before heading to where the entrance would be if this washed out version was anything like the King's Cross it resembled.

"Harry, think about what you are doing," Dumbledore offered in final warning.

Harry paused, half turning towards the man who had once left a toddler, barely more than a baby, on a doorstep in the middle of a November night and later had the gall to speak of wanting to protect that same child from death. A thousand times, Harry had faced that fate because of that choice. A thousand times, Harry had accepted the inevitability of it just as thoroughly as he had while staring into the eyes of his would-be murderer. The child in his arms gave an almost subvocal whine, prompting Harry to press a kiss to his forehead before answering the dead wizard.

"Above all things, Voldemort feared death," Harry said. His words held all the chill of a glacier. "I go to make that nightmare a reality. You who boast of open hearts and talk about how much you regret _lying_ even as you continue to do it—you fear _truth_ above all things. So I will leave you with this truth: hoarding power with no intent to help those without it is just as malicious as abusing it. You and Voldemort are not opposing forces. _You're the same_."

Those words echoed in the empty train station as Harry walked away with the burden of his horrific childhood in his arms.

Just like always, Harry saved himself.

It was never going to be easy, but then the best things never were.

-= LP =-  
An Ending  
-= LP =-


End file.
